Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

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Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by David Sedgwick » Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:10 am

The Sinquefield Cup, the fifth and final leg, of the Grand Chess Tour, starts tomorrow, Tuesday 17th August.

It is a 10 player Round Robin Standardplay event.

Play takes place each day from Tuesday 17th August until Thursday 26th August, except for Sunday 22nd August which is a rest day. All rounds start at 2100 BST.

The time limit is 90 minutes for 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus 30 seconds increment throughout.

I shall post the final list of players and the draw when I have confirmation of them.

The Opening Ceremony take place today, Monday 16th August, at 2400 BST. I expect there to be a link to the broadcast on the front page at www.grandchesstour.org, as was the case with the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz.

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by David Sedgwick » Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:21 am

The official commentary should again be available for viewing at www.kasparovchess.com. and at www.twitch.tv/kasparovchess.
Tim Harding (in another thread) wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:05 pm
Chess24 are not carrying commentary this week. I hope they will be doing it next week for the Sinquefield Cup.
That will only happen if Chess24 arrange their own commentary team. KasparovChess have exclusive rights to the feed and commentary from St Louis and hence this is only available at the two locations above.

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Tim Harding » Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:40 pm

According to chess24, the ten players contesting the Sinquefield Cup will be:
Caruana *, Mamedyarov *, So *, Rapport *, Dominguez Perez, MVL *, Svidler, Shankland, Xiong and Swiercz.

Players marked with an asterisk are participants in the Tour; the others are wildcards.

Four of the six US registered players previously were affiliated to other nations.

At present chess24 is saying its commentary team will be Alexander Grischuk *, Simon WIlliams and Andras Toth.
Who he? There are several Hungarians of that name on the FIDE list; one is an IM.

If Grischuk is going to be commentating from Russia he is going to have to adjust his body clock because games won't start until 2300 Moscow time.
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:43 pm

Good field

In fairness, I think even Grischuk is usually up by 23.00

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Tim Harding » Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:09 pm

It's not a poor field but hardly matches previous years in depth.

Aronian, Grischuk, Radjabov and Giri are all Grand Tour participants who are conspicuous by their absence.
If a couple of them had been playing instead of Xiong and Swiercz the field would have been comparable.

I have no personal knowledge of Grischuk's habits. I just want him to stay awake throughout as his input is likely to be of more value than that of the mysterious Toth (not that I shall be staying up often beyond midnight).
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Nick Burrows » Tue Aug 17, 2021 5:44 am

Tim Harding wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:09 pm
the mysterious Toth
He's a Hungarian IM who lives in Australia - has a popular YouTube channel.

Interviewed here: https://youtu.be/mhnfbObE8lA

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Eric Gardiner » Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:20 am

I've found a combination of IM standard player plus top GM works well for me. For example, when Tania Sachdev and Peter Leko were commentating, Tania was often asking Peter the questions that occurred to me.

Grischuk and Williams certainly sounds an intriguing combination!

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:13 pm

I am sorry for the lateness of this update.

I can now confirm that the participants will be as follows:

Full Tour Participants: Fabiano Caruana; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov; Richard Rapport; Wesley So; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Wildcards: Leinier Dominguez; Sam Shankland; Peter Svidler; Darius Swiercz; Jeffrey Xiong

The Pairings are now available at https://grandchesstour.org/2021-grand-c ... gs-results.

A recording of the Opening Ceremony is available at https://grandchesstour.org/2021-grand-c ... d-cup-live. If you scroll through 12 minutes or so of introductory music, it lasts about 30 minutes.
David Sedgwick wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:21 am
[Commentary on Chess24] will only happen if [they] arrange their own commentary team.
They have indeed done so, as is reported up thread.

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:34 pm

Tim Harding wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:09 pm
It's not a poor field but hardly matches previous years in depth.

Aronian, Grischuk, Radjabov and Giri are all Grand Tour participants who are conspicuous by their absence.
All of the above were scheduled to play, but withdrew for a variety of reasons.

I have lost track of the number of times that I have heard people complaining that the Grand Chess Tour events are boring and repetitive, and that they would be far more interesting if there were a variety of players of slightly different strengths, as at the Tata Steel tournament.

Now that is happening, albeit involuntarily. One of the late replacements was positively effusive in an email thanking the organisers for his invitation.

GCT Executive Director Tony Rich has been tearing his hair out every day for the last three or four weeks trying to ensure that the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz and now the Sinquefield Cup could proceed as planned. He deserves a great deal of credit, as do all the team at Saint Louis.

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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:57 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:34 pm
Now that is happening, albeit involuntarily. One of the late replacements was positively effusive in an email thanking the organisers for his invitation.
Shame Maurice didn't have time to learn how his name is pronounced.
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Mick Norris » Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:18 am

Swiercz loses his first 2 games, both with White

TWIC

Alex Yermolinsky reports on day 1 and day 2
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Fri Aug 20, 2021 6:05 pm

True baptism of fire for Swiercz here.
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Tim Harding » Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:07 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Fri Aug 20, 2021 6:05 pm
True baptism of fire for Swiercz here.
Indeed but at least he won a game and briefly wasn't in last place; it's Svidler I feel rather sorry for.

And Caruana's mess-up against Xiong was the real shock on Saturday night.

Tonight's line-up (9pm start):
Caruana (3) v MVL (3.5)
Domingyuez Perez (3.5) v Svidler (1)
Xiong (2.5) v So (3.5)
Shankland (2) v Rapport (2.5)
Swiercz (1) v Mamedyarov (2.5)
Tim Harding
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Tim Harding » Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:45 pm

All games yesterday were drawn though the Caruana-MVL Najdorf was a lively affair in the first couple of hours.
Grischuk wasn't commentating for chess24 yesterday but the Ginger GM was accompanied by a young Indian GM who seemed wide awake though it was 1.30am where he was when the games began.

Tonight:
Rapport (3) v Dominguez Perez (4)
So (4) v Shankland (2.5)
Mamedyarov (3) v Caruana (3.5)
Svidler v Swiercz (both on 1.5)
MVL (4) v Xiong (3) which could be exciting.
Tim Harding
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Re: Sinquefield Cup 17th to 26th August

Post by Tim Harding » Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:41 am

All round 8 games were drawn too with MVL retaining his half-point lead. Four players could still win the tournamen
Final showdown tonight at 9pm BST:

Mamedyarov (3.5) v Vachier-Lagrave (5.5)
Rapport (4) v Caruana (5)
So (5) v Dominguez Perez (5)
Shankland (3.5) v Swiercz (2)
Svidler (3) v Xiong (3.5)
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

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